Owen Wilson

Luke Wilson (left) and Owen Wilson in Bottle Rocket
Photo courtesy of http://bullmurph.com/2011/06/29/a-different-kind-of-independence-day-revisiting-bottle-rocket/

Happy birthday to Owen Wilson, who turns 43 today.  Everyone knows Wilson for his work in Meet the Parents, Cars, Wedding Crashers, and Zoolander, but I wanted to see the movie that started it all Bottle Rocket from 1996.  This was Owen Wilson and his younger brother Luke Wilson acting debut.  It was also writer, directer Wes Anderson's writing debut.  He co-wrote this film with our birthday boy.

On with the movie.  I love Wes Anderson movies, so I was really excited to watch this film.  Sadly, I was very disappointed.  The movie started out really slow, and didn't pick up until the final 15 minutes of the movie.  The only scenes worth watching in this entire movie were the escape from the hospital at the beginning, the robbing of the bookstore, and then from the big heist to the ending of the movie.  In the bookstore robbery, Owen thinks putting a piece of tape over his nose will protect himself from being identified, but it just causes the employee to say "why is there tape on your nose?" (which is my favorite line in the whole movie).  I found it a little weird/distracting that Luke Wilson was cast to play Owen's friend, even though they are brothers and look very similar to each other.  I think that this was either poor casting or poor writing.  Either way, it didn't really work for me.  Owen did an okay job on his acting.  He didn't really get to showcase his humor, which was a little saddening.  I did like the jumpsuit that Owen started wearing and his motorcycle scene.  His writing could have been a little better.  I mean they never really stated what they were stealing in the big heist, and they jumped around in a couple scenes without any transitions.  I am glad that Owen's writing and acting has gotten better.  And with that, I raise my lighter to light the candles on Owen's cake.

I give this movie 2 cakes out of 5.  If you are a Wes Anderson or Owen Wilson fan, I think that you should watch this film just to see how it all began and how far they both have come.